The Inkspired Life - Sketching & Painting : Inking Out Loud
In this 90‑minute live stream, artist‑educator Jason Nicholas sketches a bridge (Deception Pass, Washington) while demonstrating his mixed‑media workflow and interacting with a lively chat. He begins with a Sharpie outline, adds water‑soluble graphite, washes it with water, and layers blue Lamy ink and brush‑pen washes to create a grungy, textured effect. Throughout the session he references other reference photos (Glass Beach, California), discusses his daily bridge‑sketch habit, and shows past works such as a holiday NYC clock‑tower piece, a Chrysler Building graphite study, and a mixed‑media clock inspired by a workshop. Viewers (Becky, D‑Ray, Chip, Cameron, etc.) suggest colors, ideas, and give feedback, prompting Jason to experiment with blue ink, add a bow motif, and brainstorm a steampunk‑Christmas clock. He shares personal reflections on teaching—workload, snow‑day perceptions, and the undervaluation of teachers—while also announcing plans to sell originals on his website, run a free January workshop, and schedule future live sketch sessions. The stream blends instructional art demonstration, community dialogue, and candid commentary on his creative process and professional life.
Chapters
Hey Deborah, hope you're doing well. Happy Tuesday, good to see you. Hello everybody, hope you're having an awesome, awesome Tuesday. It is Tuesday, right? It is Tuesday. Um, good to see everybody. Uh, this time is just like flying by. The past week, this week is It's crazy, time is just slipping away as we get towards the holiday. I'm excited about Christmas holiday, looking forward to a little break from school, but let's not think about that right now. Hope you guys are doing well. I'm, I'm continuing with my bridge sketches for the rest of the year. I want to do some kind of bridge sketch every day. Whether it's a part of a bridge, an entire bridge, something bridge-like, it doesn't matter. I'm just kind of practicing, having fun with bridge shapes and forms. So I, I am looking at actually a reference picture, but I'm loosely basing my sketch on it. Just want to capture the feel of this bridge. I've sketched this bridge a couple times already. This is Deception Pass in Oak Harbor, Washington. I have not been there, but I have a friend who lives near there and She's been kind enough to send me a lot, a lot of photos of different bridges in Washington, so I've been using them as my kind of sketching fodder for the past couple weeks. So I'm sketching with my Sharpie in case I want to come back later and add some watercolor or ink wash over this. That way the black ink won't bleed. So you typically will see me starting with a Sharpie with, with most of my sketches. And if I do want some black areas to bleed, I can come back and add use my Lamy pen or a, uh, or something else. I have other pens. Lamy— drawing a blank. My Lamy pen is definitely one of them, or my Pilot Precise pen. Cool. Looks like we have some horizontal pieces in here. There's one over here somewhere, I think. There's kind of the pylon at this end of the bridge. This bridge, this— let's see, there's water. So the water actually would be off my page. There's all kinds of hills and a hillside in the background over here. And there's a rock, huge rock outcropping kind of over here somewhere. Just, I'll kind of hint at it. Cool. I feel like breaking out some graphite, so I'm gonna work with some graphite tonight, I think. Hey Becky, good to see you! Hope you're doing well. Becky is in the house. Becky's been taking us on a nice little tour of, uh, oh my gosh, Becky, I'm drawing a blank. Is it Woodstock? Woodstock, Vermont. We're taking us on a nice little sketching tour of some really cute buildings. I would love to go tour and do some sketching there, so I'll have to plan a field trip sometime. That would be so cool. So I always appreciate you sharing what you're doing. It's so fun to, to see. All right, let's break out some graphite and just play around for— I'm not going to be on too long, maybe maybe 10 or 15 minutes tops because I am exhausted. But I wanted to come online and just do some bridge sketching, kind of push myself a little bit. Um, what do I want to do? I have this, I have some water, and we have our brush. I think that's all we're going to use tonight. I just want to keep it really quick and simple. Can you guys see that? Is it on screen? Yep. Cool. So I'm going to break out some graphite. You— I like to use this water-soluble graphite different types of ways. One way is I'll kind of just put it on my palette and I'll— oops— I'll kind of put the brush in water and I'll just lift it off the palette and kind of sketch paint with it. Oh, let's see, let's kind of just add some lines in here. We'll do some under here as well. This will dry lighter than it goes on, kind of like watercolors and ink. It'll dry lighter. I want to be kind of fast and just quick with it. And we'll do a little bit of grunging on it. So I'm just going to actually take the soluble graphite, put it in my water, wet it a little bit so it'll melt when I put it here. And I like to use graphite because it captures the the texture of the paper nicely. And I can show that to you when it dries, it'll show a little bit better. I got a runny nose. Man. Alright, cool. Not that you guys needed to know that. But if you hear me sniffle— sniffling, All right, cool. And we have kind of— we have some shadowish things kind of happening here up the hill, some lines going like this, shadows from the bridge, maybe something going across here that way as well. It gets kind of dark in this area here. I'm just tapping the graphite here in the wet areas a little bit to add some texture. Cool. Becky says, yes, you got it, Woodstock! Cha-ching! I'll take it, I'll take it. You know, my memory shuts off. My memory part shuts off after 8 o'clock at night. Creativity is always on. Memory, not so much. So I am surprised I remember that. But yeah, it's really— Becky, I love the sketches, and I love the way the town looks decorated for Christmas, the buildings. It has a real quaint feeling to it. I love it. And, uh, I know you gave me permission to use some of your photos for sketching, so I'll try to hit it. I'll try to hit those sketches sometime. Maybe over the weekend I'll do one or two. So my main focus is bridges the rest of the year, but I'll be doing other things in between. Well, not like there's any in between, because The days are packed. Every day is jam-packed with something going on. And that's not a complaint, it's a good thing. Cool. There we go. So I like the way it's looking. I just have some graphite, you know, put some down here just to anchor this a little bit to the ground. Let me tilt it up a little bit. I'll zoom in so you guys can kind of see some of the texture happening. I'm literally just tapping this. Julio, Julio. This is just a quick, quick little study here today, tonight. And you might see some reddish brown. This is from the dirty water I'm using. I like to use dirty water, especially when I'm kind of doing a grungy look. Some of you guys will remember these— this is actually the container I had that special mixture in. I made— I mixed my own colors up and I left it in a jar for, I don't know, a year, year and a half, and it was growing really weird things in the jar and smelling so toxic. I think that was last year, so I had to empty it out. I love the color it was making, but it was just toxic. It smelled so bad. I had mixed some paint, watercolor paint, some ink. Some dirty water. It was this really cool rust color which I loved. I haven't been able to replicate it. Alright, cool. I think that's enough graphite for now. And I'll throw down some more ink on top. It's been a while since I broke out my graphite stick. Hmm, you go for it, Becky! Do it! Break out the graphite! Which camera we have on? This one. Break out the graphite! You can do it! Love the graphite. I know it comes in different colors. I've been tempted. I got a— I was kind of— to get a Michaels gift card for my birthday. I might see if I can get some different colors of these graphite sticks and play around with them. I love these. I've been sketching with graphite sticks for, I don't know, a couple years. I love them. It's a good way for me to keep things loose. Very sketchy. Notice the point on here, like, I like the broad point. That way I'm not trying to create fine details and fine lines. I'm just working with what I have, so it forces me to be kind of loose with it. I said I was going to put that down, I'm still using it. Where is my— you know what, let's, uh, where's my Lamy? Let's break out the Lamy. I have actually blue ink in the Lamy. Where the heck is it? It's over here. Oh, it's in my bag from school. I didn't take it out. Let's break out my Lamy and then, um, it has blue ink, so we'll just play around and throw some blue ink on here. For the heck of it. So there is blue ink. I want to pull out some of the structure a little bit more, so I'm okay with using the Lamy now because I want to bleed some darker color ink. That's— let me see if I can get it out of the pen. Here's a quick— here's a cool little practice sketch I did. I like the way this came out. This was quick and fast, really loose. Let me see, I have some paper here. I'm gonna— I think my ink's a little dry in here. I haven't used it in a while. Unless it's empty. Alright, there it goes. Cool. Alright, so let's just sketch with some of this Lamy ink. Gonna move that over, sorry guys. There we go. I keep putting my hand in the wet graphite, so I'm gonna turn this upside down. Uh, this side's wet too. Oh my gosh. What am I doing here? So I'm going to throw some of this blue color and we'll go over it with some water and we'll let it bleed. There we go, it's coming out now. All right, cool. All right, let's throw some water down and bleed that a little bit. Use a brush pen. I'm a little disoriented. I have stuff— where did I put my brush pens? That was my keyboard clicking. Oh, here. There's no water in that one. Here we go. I got a brush pen here. Ah, this is a fine point. I like medium point brush pens. This is kind of a fine. What point? We'll use it. I'm going to prop this up at an angle and we'll just bleed some of this blue Lamy ink a little bit, see what it looks like. Ooh, I just let a lot of water out. I can— I'm going to blot it back a little bit. Yeah, I don't— I honestly, I don't like this fine tip one. Where's my other one? That is a no-go, no-go, no-go. Here they are. Yeah, yeah, I like this size tip on my Aqua Brush. I feel like I can control these pretty well. Just bleed some more blue on here, maybe under here, make it a little darker. I love this piece of music. Yikes. There we go. This is cool. I like the way this is bleeding on here. Again, I just want to be fun. Be kind of loose with this. Just practicing bridges and structure. This is kind of my own take on what I'm seeing, what I'm feeling. I'm gonna throw some of this blue ink down here on this piling area as well. I want to pull the edge out. It kind of got lost a little bit. So I'm going to throw some ink kind of around the perimeter and we'll pull out the shape a little bit better. You'll see what happens once I add water. There you go. You can see how that blue ink is kind of bleeding, right? It's just pulling out the shape of this pylon. I may have thrown a little too much on there. I can just blot it back a little bit. I actually like the way it looks when you blot some of it off. Cool. A little bit of this ink goes a long way, guys. Totally. Let's just throw some down here on the ground. I'm gonna bleed some of that blue up here. And we have a— we have a piling up here as well. Let's see. There we go. So that kind of pops it out just a little bit. Cool. I'm liking this. I'm liking the roughness. I'm liking the different colors. I like the pop of the blue with— against the graphite and the black ink. It's looking pretty cool. Let me check the comments and see if you guys are saying anything awesome. You usually do say awesome stuff. I actually do want to throw some of that— before I do that, I want to throw some blue ink on this rock outcropping here just to pull this a little bit more in the foreground. There we go. And I'm just going to kind of pull this off a little bit here. Cool. There we go. Just, I think adding that ink on the edge just kind of pulled that forward. Becky says, nice, I really like that fast sketch. Oh cool, thank you, love it. Yeah, D-Ray, see me now. Hey D-Ray, we can definitely, we can see you. Hope all's well. Great, great to see you. Hope you're keeping warm in Alaska. Welcome. Um, Dearest says, I was writing a lot on here but only saw myself. Yeah, no, I, I— the first thing I saw you write was, see me now. But I'm glad we can see you. That's awesome. Becky says, blue ink is looking cool. Yeah, I like this. This is, this is— where's my pen go? This is just blue Lamy ink. It's kind of a nice change from the black. I like it. Um, it's weirdly warm here and raining. Oh, you got some— yeah, we, we have rain here. I guess it was in the 50s today here in Northern Jersey. I just say Northern Jersey, Northern New Jersey. I guess I could say Jersey. Um, I'm hoping— I'm— don't tell anybody, but I'm hoping we get a snow day from school sometime soon because I could use one. I need to sleep in one day. Um, 30 degrees and snowing. Oh, oh, under the weather tonight. Oh no, D-Ray, hang in there, hang in there. We hope you— we all hope you feel better. Cool. So I hope you guys are liking this quick bridge sketch. Um, I'm gonna let it dry. I think it's getting a little bit wet. This is— I wish I could tell you what paper this is. I bought it, I think it's a Strathmore pad. Let me zoom out. I pulled the paper cover off the front that said what it was. I think it's Strathmore. I actually ended up buying it because they didn't have the Canson pad I was looking for at Michaels a few weeks ago, so I grabbed this. Um, it has a kind of a nice hard pressed board or thick cardboard cover on it. I love this little sketch. I, I put a question out there about adding color, yes or no, and most of the feedback is saying add some color to it. So I might revisit this and throw some color down at some point. This was a bridge I was working on last night. I was really having fun with the colors on this one. I should have wrote down where it is. I forget where it is. It's Glass Beach, I think in California. Glass Beach in California, if I remember correctly. But I love the— I love the colors and the pop of the blue for the water. Again, I think I used some graphite back here for the landmass. Now I'm on this bridge here. I don't know, I do want to add— I think I want to add just some more structure on here. So maybe I'll do that and we'll wrap up. Zoom in. Yay for snow day! Bring it on! So we get, we get a total of 5 snow days. Not a heck of a lot. Some people are like, "No, I'd rather not use my snow days." I'm like, "If it snows, let's use them. I'm cool with it." I like— and truth be told, on snow days, I'm either outside shoveling or doing schoolwork. So it's not really a day off for me. I might sleep in a little bit, yes. But I'm not like making hot chocolate and watching Elf or something. I probably should do that. I'm actually— I have so much schoolwork to do that I am putting time in whenever I can. People are like, "Oh, you get snow days? That's not fair. Teachers get paid too much. You get off all the holidays that kids get off, you get off snow days, and you get paid for it." If people only saw the hours— I can only speak for myself— the hours I put in behind the scenes, yeah, they wouldn't be making comments like that. It's going on, going on a little tangent here, but it's ridiculous. People, I, I honestly didn't understand how much time a teacher put in until I started teaching about 4 years ago. So I get it, especially if you're a teacher that cares and you're dedicated, you love your kids, you're gonna put the time in, in the classroom and outside. So it's cool stuff. It's not a complaint. It's what I signed up to do and I like doing it. I just don't like when people say that I— they don't understand why I get paid what I get paid. What teachers get paid, what we get paid. I heard that comment from a gentleman a couple years ago, and he totally, totally set me off. I no longer talk to this gentleman if I can help it. Hey, that was cool! Did you guys like that story that I just totally went off on a tangent? I'm so sorry. I don't even know how I got down there. I was getting a little, a little upset thinking about this gentleman. But it's all good. I'm sketching bridges and life is awesome. How could I complain? And you guys are out there, so thank you so much. You guys are so cool. I'm just sketching a little more structure in here. I do want to busy it up a little bit with the structure. There we go. Is this exactly what I'm looking at in the photograph? No, not at all. This is— I got this shape here from the sketch. I got a kind of a pylon and some of the structure. I'm just adding structure here. Excuse me. Cool. I think this is done. I don't think I want to add anything else to it right now. I'm feeling like it's in a good place. Did I grunge it? Yeah. Did I get smudge marks on here? I totally got smudge marks. As you can see, it's not art unless you wear it. I am totally wearing the graphite stick. Graphite sticks and I are— don't— we don't get along when it comes to being clean and neat. They're very messy for me, and I got some on here, but that's okay. Again, it's a quick study sketch for me. If I wanted to, I could come back, I could add colors and try to get rid of it, or I could even crop this drawing here and cut it here if I wanted to. But anyway, hope you guys like that quick bridge sketch. Jason Nicholas Nicholas, good to see you. How are you? Good to see you. Welcome. Oh, Becky says you like the rusty look, the turquoise water. Yeah, let's go back to that sketch. I love the color combo. I'm on board. I'm on board that color train. Love, love, love this color. It dried even better than I thought it would. I— this gets me excited, this color palette. Perfection. Perfecto. I love— this probably has to be one of my most favorite color palettes ever. The rusty and the turquoise. And I love the hard edge here. So cool. And I need a manicure. Yeah, this dried really cool. I'll just pan around so you guys can check it out. No sitting with Coco in bunny slippers. I gotta get me some bunny slippers, wear them, wear them in school one day. I think we have a pajama day coming up end of the month. Maybe for pajama day I'll actually wear slippers. That'll be cool. I need Batman slippers. That would be fun. Venti is good for your mental health and this is a safe space. Oh, there you go. Yeah, thanks Becky. I wasn't really trying to vent or be angry. I was just, I was just kind of stating a fact that, um, what this gentleman said to me one time. I don't hold grudges. I move forward. It's— I can't make people understand things. I can only do what I can do, right? Yeah, this looks cool. This dried awesome. Disrespecting the hard work of others is lame. Yeah, you know. We all put in time and we all do things that people don't see. So don't knock it. Don't knock it. Just take your energy and put it into positive stuff instead of ripping other people, right? That is not cool. I am liking this sketch, guys. Look at it drying. Let's go closer. Oops. Sorry about that. So I'm going to hold this. I could have zoomed the camera instead of holding it. My hand's a little shaky. I have shaky hands sometimes. Sorry about that. So why don't we do it the way I should originally have done it, like this. Zoom the camera down. There we go. I'll let you guys look at that for a minute. Let's focus. Boom! So this is drying really, really awesomely. I like— as you can see, I am definitely wearing graphite all over the place. I'm liking the way this is drying and it's so cool, the color combination. Kira says, "Closer, wow!" There you go, yeah, it is closer. I'll pan down a little bit, you guys can see a little bit more. And then I'll show you one quick thing and I'm gonna wrap up, 'cause I'm a tired horse. I don't even know what that means. Is that an expression, tired horse? I have no idea. But thank you guys for tuning in. I would— I wanted to come online and sketch, um, just show you guys what I'm up to and how— what I'm doing with these bridges and just how I'm practicing, how I'm not aiming for perfection. I'm just having fun trying to capture the spirit of a bridge. Fantastic, Becky says. Thank you. So, so cool. So I'm going to pull out a little show and tell from last year. Some of you guys might remember this piece. Um, I was thinking about it today and I pulled it out of my drawer because it's the holiday season. So let's take a look at this original sketch painting here. I, I love this piece. I don't, I don't know if I put the year on. I didn't sign it. I didn't put the year on it. I think it was last year, 2021. If not, it was 2020. Honestly, the ears blend together sometimes. It was definitely the last couple years. Um, after the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, I was kind of inspired to go and do a quick city sketch. What I like about this is it has a perspective, right? And it's focusing on the school Christmas tree. So it's a city vibe. Um, Has a cool little clock tower up here. This has graphite on it, so I did use some graphite for the gray areas. Some watercolors as well. So I'm going to zoom in, you can see some details. It would either be fun just to pull this out. Blast from the past. Woo woo! NYC Christmas sketch. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think I'm going to put this on my Facebook for sale. I'm going to sell the original. You can go on my fine art, JasonFineArt.com, and get prints and cards and t-shirts with this image. But I think I'm going to put the original out. See what happens. It's a real cool piece, but it's been in my drawer for the past year. So I wanted to show that to you guys. I don't know if you guys, if any of you remember this. So I didn't, I wrote maze instead of Macy's here. I was just kind of playing off of Macy's a little bit. This isn't any particular area in NYC at all. It's an imaginary scene I sketched. Well, there you go. Cool stuff. Hey, Plumpy Lump says, I love this piece. The tree is fun, but the clock keeps dragging my attention. Yeah, let me zoom in again. Nice to see you, welcome. Nice to see you again. Yeah, look at— I keep moving around, I'm so sorry. I'm a little fidgety. I did not have any coffee, I swear. Not tonight. Yeah, look at the clock. Let me zoom out, you guys can see the whole thing. My speaker just turned on back there. Yeah, the clock is, is kind of a fun piece on here, right? I also like the yellow kind of building in the background. So I guess I was imagining— I kind of actually didn't imagine, I made this area a little bit brighter just to bring your eye back towards where that Christmas tree is. That's why I have the yellow building. But let's zoom in on the clock. So I, I love sketching clocks. Well, I think I have a piece here I could pull out. Yeah, it's actually on top. That was lucky. So I don't know if anybody remembers this one I did. Becky might remember this because I remember we were talking about being grungy and stuff. This came out cool. This is a mixed media piece, acrylic ink, graphite, watercolor stick on here, some ink as well. But this is cool. This— I was trying to make kind of like a grungy, grunge-ified kind of part of a clock tower here. So I do— I love sketching clocks on things. Kind of cool. I remember it and remember the workshop lesson inspired by it. Oh, awesome! That is so cool, Becky. This is where my memory brain has turned off. I'm trying to remember the workshop— workshop lesson inspired by it. Do we do something in one of our workshops inspired by the clock? Oh my gosh. So look for this on Facebook. This will be coming up. I'll put the original out for— for— I don't know if I'll put it out for bids or for sale. I think for sale because this piece has— I put a lot of time into this one. I feel like if I put it out for a bid, it might go way, way too low. Um, you know what I'm gonna do, guys? I'm gonna— this is, uh, here you go. This is Inking Out Loud. It's never too late to come back. And add to a sketch. This sketch doesn't have a year. It's definitely over a year old. I have my favorite colored, colored pencil, Prismacolor Light Aqua. You can tell it gets a lot of use. Let's, uh, I want to throw some on here. I think, I think the Light Aqua would go well on here. I love mixed media. I love adding colored pencil on top of sketch paintings. So let's zoom in. Where should we add some? Let's change the tunes up a little bit. Uh, what do you want to listen to? We'll put the world playlist on. Becky says— oh, Becky, oh, the workshop inspired by this one. Yeah, yeah, that's right, we did the workshop inspired by the perspective. Yeah, I do remember that one actually. I didn't— maybe it was you. Some, some people had like an American— didn't we do like a Fourth of July or summer scene? I remember American flags on the streetscape, or flags on a streetscape. Um, I dig it. Looks like a horror water tower clock. Yes, this is, uh, from Stephen King's upcoming book called The Clock Master. Now I'm totally making that up. This could be a— this could be the character in a Stephen King novel. That's so fun. The Clock Master. So I'm going to throw some of this blue on here. I like the color, like aqua mixed with these copper bronze colors. Actually, I think I'm going to add some, kind of pop some out here. There we go. Kind of pop some out here a little bit more. Yeah, this is, this is a fun sketch. As you guys can see, I'm kind of all over the place here. This might pull the face of the clock out a little bit if I just kind of put an edge around here. Cool, there we go. I don't want to overdo it, but I think that's cool, adding some of that color pencil. Hey, Karen's in the house! Karen, good to see you. Hope all's well. Perspective lesson with Christmas. Oh yeah, there we go. There are, there are legs in the clock. There are legs in the clock. Legs in the clock. Legs in the clock. Oh yeah, yeah, Karen, I see what you're saying. I'm with you. You're saying like these shapes here, this kind of does look like a leg. Right, that's interesting. I love when you guys see stuff in these kind of real loose abstract pieces. That is so funny. Yeah, I see, I see a leg right here. Good call. Dawn's in the house! Dawn, good to see you. Wow, it's like an Inkland reunion happening. You guys are— this is so fun. D-Race says, I see. You see the leg right here? Yeah, right here too, right? This could be a leg, kind of a foot shape. That's interesting. That's just the way the acrylic ink dried. I guess I had it— typically I'll have my artwork tilted at an angle so that it runs down the page. So it must have just dried that way. That's so funny. Awesome. Hey, so, so cool. So yeah, so guys, this— I really have to start dating. I'm really bad at dating my artwork, and I don't mean like taking it out to dinner, I mean like writing the date on it. So yes, that was a bad dad joke. So I have to, um, just start writing the date. I don't remember exactly, I'd have to go back and look at my videos, but this was a while ago. So cool. Yeah, there's that piece. How do we get onto clocks? Well, we looked at this piece from a year or two ago. We were talking about the clock on here, which made me think of this clock I did. And then we started with a bridge. So we go from a bridge to a city to a clock. You never know where we're going to end up, but it's all good. And then this is, this is how this one has dried. You know what, I am going to put some of this I'm gonna play around a little bit. I think I'm gonna add some of this on the bridge sketch. I gotta change the music. I'm not digging this music. Hmm. I'm sometimes fussy about the music I'm listening to. I love the tunes on here, but this isn't the right— I'm not in the right mood for this. You know what, I'm going to put on some choir music. I want some quiet kind of wrap-up music. So let's go to the chorus playlist and let's play some of these songs. Just kind of chill out. We have some drama in the house, some drama online. Karen says, yes, do something fun with them. Absolutely. Always do fun stuff. Red, red leg could be Christmas stocking on here on the clock. You're talking about the clock sketch. Let's take a look. Let's talk about this for a minute. Yeah, I mean, these could be Christmas stockings. Sure, I could see that. Yeah, so, so Karen, I mean, you have a good point. We could definitely incorporate these drippy, leggy looking things somehow into this clock. But I'll have to come back and revisit it. My brain isn't on— it's not on this piece, so I'm not really sure right now what I would do with it. But I'm going to keep this out on my desk here, so I'm sure one day the moment will hit me up like, oh, Let's try this. Actually, now that I'm looking, I see a bow. See, now my brain's getting into it. This is how— this is how I'm wired. This is how we do it. Can you guys see like a bow here? There's like a bow shape, kind of like here. This would be the middle of the bow. Interesting. This could be like the clock from Christmas Past. The clock from Christmas past. Oh, where's my new Post-it? Hey Chip, did I see Chip in the house there? Chip, what's going on? How are you? Hope you're doing well. Just seeing— just now seeing this. The best, love the clock. Thanks Chip. Chip, it's always, always great to see you. Um, I want to make a note on this Post-it before I forget. Thank you guys for inspiring these ideas. I do read your comments. I don't always do everything that's suggested, but I do— I'm open-minded and listen and see what you have to say. I'm looking, I'm looking for a pen to write things with. It's not like I don't have all these writing tools here. I've lost my mind, guys. Like, looking for a pen to write on the Post-it. Yes, you should see me in the classroom. It's a trip. I am a trip in school, in a good way. I keep class interesting. All right, this— what I say, this could be the clock of Christmas past. I have some trace paper here, guys. Let's switch gears. I am gonna leave the bridge at this for now. I'm not gonna work on this anymore tonight. I kind of like where it is. Quick, loose, rough, grungy. Totally the vibe I was going for. I might throw some of this down at some point, but not tonight. Let's spend, um, it's 9:46. I definitely gotta log off by 10 because I gotta get to bed, but my brain's going. I have tracing paper here. Let's take a look at this. All right, welcome to my mind. This is how it works. This This is what I'm thinking. I'm totally going to ink out loud with you guys and kind of show you what I'm seeing in my brain. Let me get my thicker Sharpie out so you can see it better. Oh yeah, look at this. This is a Sharpie. Now you're talking. Sharpie king size. Look at, look at this. Look at the difference. I'm in heaven. I love Sharpies. All right, so here's what I kind of see. I'm seeing a bow. Again, it's real quick. I've seen some kind of bow thing. I'm not great at drawing bows, just bear with me. There's some kind of bow thing happening here. You guys are saying maybe these could be Christmas kind of— some kind of Christmas stocking things. Again, bear with me. This is quick, out loud thinking. So bow, Christmas stockings hanging, Clock of Christmas Past. I would— I don't know, I almost want to see What kind of bow? I don't want it to be— I don't know. I almost want it to stand out, so I would think it might be a red, some kind of reddish bow on there. I'm actually starting to see a face, face in the clock area. It could be some kind of face. I'm seeing like something happening here. Maybe not so smiley, but maybe some kind of face happening in the clock. This definitely looks like some kind of hat on top. I don't want to turn it into a cute clock. I think it should have a— if I do something like this, I think it should have a a steampunk vibe somehow to it. Maybe a steampunk vibe. So like a steampunk vibe Christmas clock, Ghost of Christmas Past or something. And needs one of those, like the steam whistles on it. Oh man, I— what do steam whistles look like? They kind of have like a, like a steam whistle thing here. Oh, you can't see them off camera. Some kind of steam whistle thingy happening off the side somewhere. All right, that's just a quick brainstorm. So we could definitely take this in a different direction. I'm kind of— I'm picturing it in here a little bit. So when I'm designing and sketching plans for a house, a design for a house, it's not always about the drawing part, the sketching. It's also about writing. It's about writing keywords, brainstorming. So I like to brainstorm with words and pictures. I like to do a lot of mind mapping, which I have examples in here I can show you, I think. If not this one, I have it in another book. Yeah, so I like to think with mind mapping, so a lot, a lot of kind of diagrams and words. So don't be afraid when you're creating your artwork, don't put down some words, bullet points, maybe things you want to add or the vibe you want to get. In your sketch or painting. Just kind of a tip. That's kind of how I think. Cool. Alrighty guys, let's see. I think I'm gonna wrap up. We're gonna go through final questions and comments and wish you all a fond adieu. Is that how you say it? Bid you all a fond adieu. Not fondue. That's The stuff you dip your pretzels in, the cheese or chocolate. But a fondue, is it? I think that's French for something. All right, this is what we talked about tonight, so you can kind of see where we were with our chat. Um, the comments. Becky says, my first was the leg from A Christmas Story. Gotcha. Yes, the leg lamp, right? The classic leg lamp. I've only seen that movie once, and I don't even know if I saw the whole movie, but I know it's a classic. I know it's a classic. Um, I think they just remade it. Didn't they just do a new version with the same kid? Um, Chip says, Jason, you've been holding back on us. The clock is amazing. Oh, Chip, so cool. Yeah, I did this last year at some point. Yeah, it was probably before you started, um, before we connected. That's cool. Let me look in my drawer of fun to see if I have anything from back then. But thank you, I appreciate your kind words. Cameron's in the house. Cameron, welcome. Cameron, before I leave, how did you do on your final project? Let us know in the chat. And I got your message earlier, um, I will contact you. I think I have your number. I know you sent your email. We'll definitely— well, I'll talk to you about the workshop. The workshop would be in January, and we usually do Zoom meetings on uh, like a Saturday, like Saturdays, but I have not organized it or put a schedule together. I'll let you know. And if you— Cameron, if you wanted to join us, it would be my treat. I usually charge for the workshop, but I would let you join us for free because you are an awesome, awesome dude, and I'm proud of you for all your hard work you're doing in architecture school. Um, so here, here's some things kind of in the drawer and like in the same area I pulled the clock out of. And then this, I think you guys have all seen the Chrysler Building. This is all done with graphite, by the way. I love this Chrysler Building sketch. So there you go, Chip. This is some kind of, some of the stuff that was kind of done around the same time frame. Um, a big old bow. A peek inside the creative— yes, the creepy creative mind. A clock out of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Ooh, that's cool. That could be very interesting. I never read the books. I did see the movie. I know my wife has read the books. Um, that would be so cool. Yeah, Cameron, yep, yep, I saw the message, yep. I will get back to you, I promise. Ooh, I love the water tanks, Dawn says. Ooh, that's so cool. Yeah, this water tank is interesting. If you can see on this, this is metallic acrylic ink. I think it's silver. It has a bluish tone to it. I don't remember. But it's metallic. I don't know if you can see that on camera. Probably not so much. Maybe if I kind of do this, you can see it. So in person, this looks really cool, this metallic-y color. Yeah, this kind of grunge aesthetic is something I really, really love doing. Uh, Kara says the project was not bad. I do need to redo my light box images or some other minor things, but overall it was good. Oh, oh, that's awesome! We're so glad to hear that, Cameron. Very, very cool. Very, very cool. We can, um, over the— over winter break, I would love to hear more about the project and other things you've worked on. That would be so cool. And then I could tell you what we've been doing in our art classes in school, and maybe you can give me some feedback. I always like to know what you guys think. For me, being a good teacher means I listen to my students and I listen to their feedback. Cool. I'm just kind of looking at this close-up, guys. I love— I just kind of love this edge here. This is— this— all the black marks you see, that's watercolor. That's right here, it's a watercolor stick. It's in this drawer if I can get it out. So it's a watercolor stick. I should put together a list of my grunge, grunge look materials I use. Cool. All right guys, I know I went down kind of Went down a rabbit hole there. But what happened when Alice went down the rabbit hole? Well, she ate and drank some weird stuff, but she went to Wonderland. She was in a wondrous place. So sometimes it's cool to go down that rabbit hole and just look at the world in curious and wondrous ways. And that It's kind of how I try to keep my creative well, creative soul filled up. Just looking at the world a little bit differently. Cool, guys. Hey, you're awesome. I'm gonna wrap up. It's 10 o'clock. I have school tomorrow. I am a tired bunny. Um, wait, was he— no, he was the one that was late. No, he was the clock guy in Alice in Wonderland. I am all over the place. All right, cool, guys. Thank you so much for watching. Have an awesome rest of your night. I'm trying to think of my— if I'll be on this week. Today's Tuesday. Possibly tomorrow night I'll come on and do my daily bridge sketch. Friday, I'm not sure. Saturday, I'm not sure. Sunday, I'm not sure. But there again, next week I have a really crazy week during school and I have events after school, so it's gonna be a crazy week. All right guys, uh, be looking for this. If anybody is interested in this, purchasing this original piece here, I'll have it out on my Facebook page. Hopefully you can find a better home than living inside my metal cabinet. If— actually, I'll just keep it out for the holidays because it's so cool. Thank you guys, take care. I appreciate you all so much. Peace and live creatively. I'll see you guys soon. Take care. I'm looking for the finish button. Thanks guys. Oh, thank you for sharing, by the way. I'm also, I'm also streaming on YouTube the same time we're doing Facebook, so if you know anybody on YouTube, let them know. I'd love to get more followers. That'd be so cool. Good night guys, take care.
